OUR PICKSSenior Agent Who Helped Oversee F.B.I.’s Response to Jan. 6 Is Fired | Russian Interference: Tulsi Gabbard’s Revisionist Innuendo | These Nuclear Reactors Fit on a Flatbed Truck. How Safe Are They?, and more

Senior Agent Who Helped Oversee F.B.I.’s Response to Jan. 6 Is Fired  (Adam Goldman, Devlin Barrett, Glenn Thrush, and William K. Rashbaum, New York Times)
Deepening its purge, the bureau forced out Steven Jensen, whose ascent had angered Trump supporters, and Brian Driscoll, the acting director in the early chaotic days of the administration.

This Digital Skills Training Tripled Job Rates. Why Didn’t It Survive?  (George Zuo and Omari Jackson, Work Shift)
Despite being surrounded by smartphones and screens, as many as one-third of U.S. workers—including younger generations—lack the fundamental digital skills necessary to navigate and succeed in the modern labor force. Being digitally connected, or having an online presence, is no guarantee of the ability to use technology professionally.
This skills gap isn’t just a problem for applying for jobs; it’s a problem for actually doing most jobs. In a 2023 study of job ads by the National Skills Coalition and the Federal Reserve of Atlanta, researchers found that 92 percent of jobs (PDF) —even for entry-level positions—now require digital skills. They’re necessary in every industry, in every state, and for corporations and small businesses alike.
Workers with even basic digital skills earn roughly 23 percent more—translating to about $8,000 in annual income.

Responding to President Trump’s Recent Executive Orders on Drones (Daniel M. Gerstein, RealClearDefense)
President Donald Trump’s June 6, 2025 Executive Order (EO) “Unleashing American Drone Dominance.”  

Given rapid advances and increasing ubiquity of drone technology, addressing the growing UAS threats in the homeland could prove to be a significant challenge. It requires balancing the EOs goal of the proliferation of technology that is inherently dual use with the need to identify UAS technologies operating in U.S. airspace and implement defenses and countermeasures to protect the U.S. and its critical infrastructure, and individuals from actors looking to take advantage of the dual use nature of drone technology.

From Russian Interference to Revisionist Innuendo: What the Gabbard Files Actually Say  (Renee DiResta, Lawfare)
Tulsi Gabbard’s latest “revelations” are being spun as proof of a deep state conspiracy. The documents themselves tell a much duller story.

Big Budget Act Creates a “Deportation Industrial Complex” That Will be Hard to Dismantle  (Margy O’Herron, Just Security)
The so-called One Big Beautiful Act allocates more than $170 billion over four years for border and interior enforcement, with a stated goal of  deporting 1 million immigrants each year. That is more than the yearly budget for all local and state law enforcement agencies combined across the entire United States. The bill adds billions of dollars to border enforcement, but the largest percentage increase goes to finding, arresting, detaining, and deporting immigrants already living in the U.S., most of whom have not committed a crime and many of whom have had lawful status.
Although the population of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. has remained fairly constant over the past 10 years, overall immigration has increased since the 1970s, and increased funding has been needed to fairly and efficiently address that growth. But the scale and focus of the increases are startling. The July 2025 funding package appropriates huge sums for deportations while neglecting processes that are needed for a fair and workable immigration system, such as immigration judges to ensure citizens or immigrants are not erroneously deported. The result will be a lopsided, enforcement-only machine. Most detention facilities will be operated by for-profit private prison corporations and other private contractors, creating strong economic and political interests that will make the new apparatus very difficult to dismantle.
Taken together long-term detention and surveillance contracts, rapid hiring increases for enforcement, and new monetary incentives for reprioritizing law enforcement on immigration will create a deportation-industrial complex—an enforcement machine with financial and political constituencies that will outlast this administration.

These Nuclear Reactors Fit on a Flatbed Truck. How Safe Are They?  (Evan Halper, Washington Post)
The nuclear industry aims to miniaturize, looking to place hundreds of small power plants across the nation.